NBN Co hits 8 Gbps over copper in XG.FAST trials

Early-stage tech put through lab tests.

NBN Co has concluded trials of high-bandwidth XG.FAST data connections over copper phone lines, claiming to have reached speeds of up to 8 gigabits per second on a 30 metre cable.

NBN Co announced the XG.FAST trials in August this year. It conducted the tests last month in technology partner Nokia's Sydney laboratory.

While the 30 metre length of twisted-pair copper yielded 8 Gbps, a longer, 70 metre line still managed 5 Gbps, NBN Co said. The network builder said 70 metres is roughly three times the average length of copper lead-ins to premises from the pit.

In February this year, Nokia said a trial with Deutsche Telecom in Germany showed that XG.FAST can deliver 8 Gbps over 50 metres of standard phone copper wiring. Using Cat-6 networking cable, the figure went up to 11 Gbps over the same distance.

NBN Co said XG.FAST provides performance "virtually on a par with what is currently available on fibre-to-the-premises, but at a lower cost and time to deploy".

While it is yet to commit to XG.FAST, NBN Co said it believes its fibre-to-the-distribution point deployment to around 700,000 premises would be an ideal platform to deploy the high-speed broadband technology.

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